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Psychiatry Research Aug 2017Anhedonia has traditionally been considered a characteristic feature of schizophrenia, but the true nature of this deficit remains elusive. This study sought to...
Anhedonia has traditionally been considered a characteristic feature of schizophrenia, but the true nature of this deficit remains elusive. This study sought to investigate consummatory and anticipatory pleasure as it relates to motivation deficits. Eighty-four outpatients with schizophrenia and 81 healthy controls were administered the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS), as well as a battery of clinical and cognitive assessments. Multivariate analyses of variance were used to examine the experience of pleasure as a function of diagnosis, and across levels of motivation deficits (i.e. low vs. moderate. vs. high) in schizophrenia. Hierarchical regression analyses were also conducted to evaluate the predictive value of amotivation in relation to the TEPS. There were no significant differences between schizophrenia and healthy control groups for either consummatory or anticipatory pleasure. Within the schizophrenia patients, only those with high levels of amotivation were significantly impaired in consummatory and anticipatory pleasure compared to low and moderate groups, and compared to healthy controls. Further, our results revealed that amotivation significantly predicts both consummatory and anticipatory pleasure, with no independent contribution of group. Utilizing study samples with a wide range of motivation deficits and incorporating objective paradigms may provide a more comprehensive understanding of hedonic deficits.
Topics: Adult; Anhedonia; Anticipation, Psychological; Consummatory Behavior; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Motivation; Pleasure; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenic Psychology; Self Report; Young Adult
PubMed: 28460280
DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2017.04.040 -
Proceedings of the National Academy of... Jun 2024Pleasure and pain are two fundamental, intertwined aspects of human emotions. Pleasurable sensations can reduce subjective feelings of pain and vice versa, and we often...
Pleasure and pain are two fundamental, intertwined aspects of human emotions. Pleasurable sensations can reduce subjective feelings of pain and vice versa, and we often perceive the termination of pain as pleasant and the absence of pleasure as unpleasant. This implies the existence of brain systems that integrate them into modality-general representations of affective experiences. Here, we examined representations of affective valence and intensity in an functional MRI (fMRI) study ( = 58) of sustained pleasure and pain. We found that the distinct subpopulations of voxels within the ventromedial and lateral prefrontal cortices, the orbitofrontal cortex, the anterior insula, and the amygdala were involved in decoding affective valence versus intensity. Affective valence and intensity predictive models showed significant decoding performance in an independent test dataset ( = 62). These models were differentially connected to distinct large-scale brain networks-the intensity model to the ventral attention network and the valence model to the limbic and default mode networks. Overall, this study identified the brain representations of affective valence and intensity across pleasure and pain, promoting a systems-level understanding of human affective experiences.
Topics: Humans; Pleasure; Male; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Female; Pain; Adult; Brain; Brain Mapping; Young Adult; Amygdala; Emotions; Prefrontal Cortex; Affect
PubMed: 38857402
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2310433121 -
Journal of the History of Medicine and... Jul 2023The visual archive of AIDS and fetish activism is a rich resource for studying interlinkages between art and science, activism and public health, politics and medicine,...
The visual archive of AIDS and fetish activism is a rich resource for studying interlinkages between art and science, activism and public health, politics and medicine, pleasure and sexual health prevention. This article explores AIDS and fetish activism imagery from the first two decades of the Norwegian AIDS crisis. Interrogating the materiality and visual context of images - photographs, posters, flyers, and safer sex instructions - it maps out visualization practices in leather, BDSM and AIDS activism. AIDS and fetish imagery made some bodies, pleasures, and political goals visible - and rendered others unseen. The article explores the materiality of images and their visual, social, and historical context of production, and traces their social biographies and afterlives. Fetish images were vehicles for change and actors co-producing history. They took part in destigmatizing BDSM, challenging psychiatric classification, and creating infrastructure and networks between subcultures, communities, and authorities. The visualization of fetish activism was as much about communication strategies as it was about aesthetic, style, and motive. The politics of visibility in Norwegian fetish activism point to the vulnerable project of fighting for acceptance through "respectability," while preserving the individuality and "otherness" of leather and fetish culture.
Topics: Humans; Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Pleasure; Safe Sex; Public Health; Fetishism, Psychiatric; Politics
PubMed: 37011106
DOI: 10.1093/jhmas/jrad012 -
Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem 2023to analyze the experiences of pleasure and suffering of nursing workers in COVID-19 hospital units.
OBJECTIVE
to analyze the experiences of pleasure and suffering of nursing workers in COVID-19 hospital units.
METHODS
a multicenter, qualitative study, developed with 35 nursing workers from COVID-19 units in seven hospitals in southern Brazil. Data were produced through semi-structured interviews, submitted to thematic content analysis with the help of NVivo.
RESULTS
experiences of pleasure were linked to gratification, identification with work content, positive results in care, recognition, integration with the team and personal overcoming. Suffering was revealed in daily life of deaths and losses, feelings of helplessness, team conflicts, institutional demands, professional devaluation. Workers reported disenchantment, but also strengthening the meaning of their work, highlighting frontline impacts on their mental health.
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
in the dynamics between pleasure and suffering in nursing work in COVID-19 hospital units, elements point to the risk of psychological illness.
Topics: Humans; Pleasure; COVID-19; Anxiety; Emotions; Hospital Units
PubMed: 37162102
DOI: 10.1590/0034-7167-2022-0356 -
Aging & Mental Health May 2022Music is ubiquitous. Despite the fact that most people find music enjoyable, there are individual differences in the degree to which listeners derive pleasure from...
Music is ubiquitous. Despite the fact that most people find music enjoyable, there are individual differences in the degree to which listeners derive pleasure from music. However, there has been little focus on how musical reward may change across the lifespan. Some theories predict that there would be little change, or even an increase in musical reward across the lifespan, while others suggest that older adults may have decreased capacity for musical reward. Here, we investigated musical reward across the lifespan. Participants consisted of American adults ranging between 20-85 years old ( = 20 participants in each 10-year age bin). Participants in Study 1 completed the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ), which is a multi-dimensional assessment of musical reward. We found a negative correlation between age and BMRQ scores, suggesting decreases in musical reward across the lifespan. When investigating which components were driving this effect, we found that the music seeking subscale was the strongest predictor of age. Participants in Study 2 completed the Aesthetic Experiences in Music Scale (AES-M), which focuses on intense emotional responses to music. In contrast to the BMRQ, we found no relationship between age and scores on the AES-M, suggesting that strong emotional responses to music are consistent across the lifespan. These results have implications for the use of music as a therapeutic tool in older adults. In addition, this work points to the importance of considering age when investigating reward for music and suggests that the ways individuals experience music may change across the lifespan.
Topics: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Emotions; Humans; Longevity; Music; Pleasure; Reward
PubMed: 33442987
DOI: 10.1080/13607863.2021.1871881 -
Experimental Dermatology May 2015The skin senses serve a discriminative function, allowing us to manipulate objects and detect touch and temperature, and an affective/emotional function, manifested as... (Review)
Review
The skin senses serve a discriminative function, allowing us to manipulate objects and detect touch and temperature, and an affective/emotional function, manifested as itch or pain when the skin is damaged. Two different classes of nerve fibre mediate these dissociable aspects of cutaneous somatosensation: (i) myelinated A-beta and A-delta afferents that provide rapid information about the location and physical characteristics of skin contact; and (ii) unmyelinated, slow-conducting C-fibre afferents that are typically associated with coding the emotional properties of pain and itch. However, recent research has identified a third class of C-fibre afferents that code for the pleasurable properties of touch - c-tactile afferents or CTs. Clinical application of treatments that target pleasant, CT-mediated touch (such as massage therapy) could, in the future, provide a complementary, non-pharmacological means of treating both the physical and psychological aspects of chronic skin conditions such as itch and eczema.
Topics: Animals; Brain; Grooming; Humans; Massage; Nerve Fibers, Unmyelinated; Physical Stimulation; Pleasure; Pruritus; Skin; Somatosensory Cortex; Touch
PubMed: 25607755
DOI: 10.1111/exd.12639 -
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic... Jun 2022
Topics: Gender Identity; Homosexuality; Humans; Pleasure; Sexual and Gender Minorities; Writing
PubMed: 35938565
DOI: 10.1177/00030651221109924 -
BMC Psychiatry May 2022Gender differences have been found to be associated with individuals' pleasure. Cognitive flexibility and emotional expressivity might play an important role between...
BACKGROUND
Gender differences have been found to be associated with individuals' pleasure. Cognitive flexibility and emotional expressivity might play an important role between gender differences and pleasure. This current study is to explore the mediating role of cognitive flexibility and emotional expressivity in the relationship between gender differences and pleasure.
METHOD
In this cross-sectional study, a sample of 1107 full-time university students from five colleges in Tianjin, Chinese mainland was investigated by questionnaire. All participants completed the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPs), the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (CFI), and the Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire (BEQ).
RESULTS
The results of independent T-test suggested that females reported better emotional expressivity, anticipatory pleasure and consummatory pleasure than males, whereas males had better cognitive flexibility than females. Using bootstrapping approach revealed that the partially mediation effects of cognitive flexibility on gender differences in anticipatory and consummatory pleasure, and that of emotional expressivity on gender differences in anticipatory and consummatory pleasure. Results of this present study stated that cognitive flexibility and emotional expressivity play a partial mediating role in explaining gender differences in anticipatory and consummatory pleasure.
CONCLUSION
Females had higher anticipatory and consummatory pleasure because they tend to use emotional regulation strategy to express their emotion.
Topics: Anhedonia; Cognition; Cross-Sectional Studies; Female; Humans; Male; Pleasure; Sex Factors; Surveys and Questionnaires
PubMed: 35513818
DOI: 10.1186/s12888-022-03945-9 -
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Apr 2021Neuroimaging studies have shown that, despite the abstractness of music, it may mimic biologically rewarding stimuli (e.g., food) in its ability to engage the brain's... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis Review
Neuroimaging studies have shown that, despite the abstractness of music, it may mimic biologically rewarding stimuli (e.g., food) in its ability to engage the brain's reward circuitry. However, due to the lack of research comparing music and other types of reward, it is unclear to what extent the recruitment of reward-related structures overlaps among domains. To achieve this goal, we performed a coordinate-based meta-analysis of 38 neuroimaging studies (703 subjects) comparing the brain responses specifically to music and food-induced pleasure. Both engaged a common set of brain regions, including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, ventral striatum, and insula. Yet, comparative analyses indicated a partial dissociation in the engagement of the reward circuitry as a function of the type of reward, as well as additional reward type-specific activations in brain regions related to perception, sensory processing, and learning. These results support the idea that hedonic reactions rely on the engagement of a common reward network, yet through specific routes of access depending on the modality and nature of the reward.
Topics: Brain; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Music; Neuroimaging; Pleasure; Reward
PubMed: 33440196
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.12.008 -
NeuroImage May 2020Listening to pleasant music engages a complex distributed network including pivotal areas for auditory, reward, emotional and memory processing. On the other hand,...
Listening to pleasant music engages a complex distributed network including pivotal areas for auditory, reward, emotional and memory processing. On the other hand, frontal theta rhythms appear to be relevant in the process of giving value to music. However, it is not clear to which extent this oscillatory mechanism underlies the brain interactions that characterize music-evoked pleasantness and its related processes. The goal of the present experiment was to study brain synchronization in this oscillatory band as a function of music-evoked pleasantness. EEG was recorded from 25 healthy subjects while they were listening to music and rating the experienced degree of induced pleasantness. By using a multilevel Bayesian approach we found that phase synchronization in the theta band between right temporal and frontal signals increased with the degree of pleasure experienced by participants. These results show that slow fronto-temporal loops play a key role in music-evoked pleasantness.
Topics: Auditory Perception; Brain; Cortical Synchronization; Female; Humans; Male; Music; Pleasure; Reward; Theta Rhythm; Young Adult
PubMed: 32087373
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116665